


Faithfulness is Reason Grown Courageous

by shamrockivy



Series: Fruits of the Spirit [4]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, M/M, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Rape/Non-con References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 15:59:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamrockivy/pseuds/shamrockivy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another trial for Bones' and Jim's marriage comes about and this time it's personal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faithfulness is Reason Grown Courageous

**Author's Note:**

> The rape that occurs in this fic happens off-screen and is not in anyway graphic, but may be triggery regardless.

He didn’t think he’d ever been more furious in his life.

It only fueled his anger more that this was going to spread throughout the ship faster than a case of Rigellian fever.

He didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t just ignore the evidence that was right before his eyes.

Goddamn hickeys and love bites on Jim’s neck that he knows for a fact he didn’t put there, bruising at the corners of Jim’s mouth that came from rough usage by a man’s member that wasn’t his own, and lips that were red and swollen from biting kisses that hadn’t been given by him all came together to paint a blatant picture of what had happened during the few short hours Jim had been on shore leave.

All the evidence and facts pointed to the conclusion that Jim had been unfaithful, just two weeks after their first anniversary.

Jim, the infuriating bastard, had been adamant that he couldn’t remember anything, and that there was no way in hell he’d consumed enough booze for that to happen.

“I swear Bones, I swear the last thing I remember at all was working my way through a second glass of Jack. After that, it’s all fuzzy and blurry and wacked out like I can’t even explain. I can’t even remember how the hell I ended up in the back alley where Spock found me.”

There was guilt eating at him too, because Jim hadn’t wanted to go planetside, not without him. Jim had wanted to wait until he was done finishing up the few medical reports and supply orders he’d been putting off for the past few weeks, to go down together for their first shore leave as husbands.

But he’d told Jim to go on, and when that hadn’t worked on the hardheaded idiot, he’d threatened him with extra inoculation hypos minus the more gentle way he’d been administering them since their courtship.

So Jim had gone down only to return just under five hours later after Spock found him practically unconscious in the back alley of the bar he’d been drinking at, face and neck covered with bites and bruises from another.

His heart told him that Jim would never cheat, but his mind was quick to point out to his heart that they weren’t strangers to unfaithful spouses and that Jim’s behavior prior to their courting and marriage was at the best of times promiscuous.

Feeling pulled two different ways like an old, worried bone being fought over by two dogs, he’d snapped.

“Dammit Jim, what the hell else am I supposed to think? It doesn’t take a scientist to figure out what you’d been doing down there!”

Jim had looked truly wrecked at that statement. Actually, Jim as a whole looked wrecked anyway, his face pale and wan and his whole body trembling minutely. It didn’t help that the white of his face and neck made the red and blue marks even more vivid.

“Bones please, please listen to me, I don’t know what happened, but why would I let someone touch me? It doesn’t make any sense. You know that I make sure people know I’m taken.”

And that was putting the truth mildly. It didn’t make a lick of sense. Though Jim did have the innate habit of mildly flirting with anything within five feet of him, he made sure not to touch or have anyone touch himself or his husband.

He also had the habit of letting the chain holding his wedding ring out of his shirt to speak without words that he wasn’t available, though wearing jewelry on duty was a violation of Starfleet protocol.

Unsurprisingly, the crew always seemed to be looking the other way at those times, even the every vigilant, pointy eared Spock.

Heck, one time on an away mission it had saved their asses, the locals recognizing the item as a symbol of the wearer’s devotion to their mate. That shared cultural value led to them changing their behavior from hostile to accepting.

He just couldn’t see the man who so proudly strutted around with his wedding band around his neck throwing away their vows he’d kept for over a year to screw around with some stranger in the back alley of a bar.

It was far too easy to doubt, but he’d promised Jim for better or worse and damn him, but Leonard Horatio McCoy was a man who kept his promises, even if others didn’t.

Snatching up Jim’s arm, he marched him down to sickbay, intent on getting the marks off of his husband’s body so he didn’t have to look at them anymore.

During their trip down the corridors, Jim kept his head tilted down, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes that they passed, and seeming to shrink into himself.

Any crewmember that dared to stare for too long at the captain being dragged along like a rowdy boy headed for the principal’s office by his CMO got a more cantankerous growl than usual barked at them by him to mind their own business.

Finally reaching the more secluded sickbay, he shoved Jim none to gently onto a biobed and pulled out a standard dermal regenerator to start healing the various contusions and cuts littered over Jim’s face and neck.

It was then that Jim broke down.

“Bones I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I did; I don’t know why I did it. I don’t know anything. But please, please don’t hate me, Bones. Be mad at me, tear me a new one, don’t ever touch me again, but please don’t hate me.”

Silent tears were pouring down Jim’s face, and dammit, he wanted to stay furious and hurt and a small part of him still was, but it was dwindling at seeing the man he loved scared out of his mind that he was going to be abandoned again.

He heaved a sigh and raised his hand, fingers barely brushing against Jim’s cheek and bringing the gaze of those shocking blue eyes that were filled with confusion and pain to his.

Jim, he knew, wasn’t that good of an actor.

“I don’t hate you Jim, it might make me a damn fool, but I don’t think I can bring myself to hate you. I may be furious as all hell, but I’m not gonna dump and run on ya.”

Once he’d gotten that said, Jim’s trembling calmed a bit, though he still pretty much looked like death warmed over.

Wanting to make sure Jim didn’t have an over excessive amount of alcohol in his system despite his claims of only having two shots, he took a small urine sample.

He scanned over the results, not surprised at the low alcohol level and nearly missing the unusual spike of chemical residue.

Running the breakdown of the chemical through the computer brought up a match within moments. Flunitrazepam, an outdated tranquilizer, although the compound suggested it was an altered version, designed to set in fast and wear off earlier than the standard version.

And it suddenly all clicked. Flunitrazepam, Jim having only two shots but not remembering anything for nearly five whole hours, the hickeys, bite marks, and bruising.

Rushing back over to Jim’s side at the biobed, he took his husband’s face in his hands and pulled him forward until their foreheads were pressed together. He let out a shaky breath, chilling scenarios running through his mind of what other horrors could have happened to Jim if the stranger had been just a bit more cruel and twisted.

He placed a soothing kiss on Jim’s forehead and pulled his head back to see Jim looking at him like he’d lost his mind.

“It’s okay Jim. It’s alright.”

Jim was shaking his head that was still gently trapped between his hands back and forth.

“It’ll never be okay Bones. How can it ever be okay?”

His husband’s voice sounded hoarse and filled with pain.

He couldn’t resist giving his husband another comforting kiss, this one a gentle brush of lips to lips.

“You have flunitrazepam, Rohypnol Jim, in your bloodstream, a pretty damn big amount of it. It’s a tranquilizer that can also cause anterograde amnesia.”

It was obvious from Jim’s expression that his mind just wasn’t firing on all thrusters, which was understandable given the drug that was still circulating through his system.

“What’s that mean Bones?”

“You were drugged darlin’. Some rotten bastard slipped Rohypnol into your glass and took you into that alley to have his way with you while you were out of it and probably bailed once you started coming to. Never thought I’d live to see the day where I’d be happy for that crazy high metabolism of yours.”

The puzzled expression on Jim’s face began to melt away as his mind sluggishly began to connect the dots. His reply lacked the teasing banter usually found in his comments.

“Oh.”

Not wanting to focus on the fear of having possibly lost Jim, or the rage that burned through him at someone touching his husband, he tugged Jim towards him into an embrace that had Jim clinging to him like a limpet as his hands soothingly stroked through his husband’s fine strands.

“It wasn’t your fault Jim. You didn’t cheat on me and you weren’t unfaithful. You were raped and I’m going to have the yellow bellied dog who did it castrated and then killed.”

Jim only clung to him harder, face buried in the crook of his neck.

He’d had Jim relate as much as he could remember from his time at the bar and fill out an official statement before declaring that Jim was going to eat something and then rest in their quarters.

It had taken a bribe of a quick unhealthy meal of a cheeseburger and fries to get Jim into agreeing to take a nap and that had only worked with his promising to nap with him.

Once Jim’s breathing had settled into the pattern that told him he was dead to the world, he used his communicator to get a hold of Spock and within minutes the information had been relayed and the walking computer was off on his self-appointed mission.

Just a little less than two hours later had him picking up his communicator to hear from Spock that the bastard scum had been caught and was facing prison without parole. Seems that slipping a tourist illegal narcotics to engage with them in sexual activities without their consent was a damn high ‘no-no’ on the list of crimes.

It had helped to ease some of the rage, but he’d still wanted to castrate the guy. However, there wasn’t a way for him to do that without leaving Jim’s side which was something that was out of the question for the near future.

After all, he knew where the filthy vermin was. He could always set up a little visit later.

Turning his attention back to Jim who’d slept through the whole thing from the stress and Rohypnol still running through his system, he spooned back around his husband, laying his head in the crook of Jim’s neck to better hear his breaths and a hand resting on Jim’s heart to feel the steady pulse there.

He eyes greedily took in what he’d almost thrown away. It was so easy to doubt and he’d nearly lost the most important thing in his life because of it.

Faith took courage and trust, and he was no coward.

When Jim woke, he’d be sure to let him know he wasn’t going to let this tear them apart. From now on, he was going to stay tied to his trust in Jim’s faithfulness.

Brushing a soft kiss to the back of Jim’s head, he pressed himself as close as possible to Jim’s back.

“I love you darlin’. Nothing’s gonna ever change that.”

His last thought before sleep claimed him was that he’d have to make sure and repeat that when Jim was awake. 


End file.
